It wasn't impatience, mainly inexperience. I'm used to ale brewing so when
the guy said to age it a longer in secondary that almost 3 weeks seemed like
a lot as I'd never gone longer than a week (and secondaries aren't even
required for ales, just advised for quality reasons). I'd never do that with
a pure mead (especially now that I've researched it and know better), but I
think part of the reason that I was lucky was that I used an ale yeast
(White Labs California Ale) and half of the fermentables came from malt, so
most of the fermention was finished in the first week (I'm guessing since
ales are pretty much finished fermenting in less than a week and it's safe
to assume that some of the honey had been fermented out, so therefore all of
half and part of the other half were eaten by the yeast). If I make this
braggot again, I wouldn't be so quick to bottle it. Not so much for fear of
bottle bombs as the fact that the braggot wasn't worth drinking until about
6 months old, so what's the point in taking the risk to bottle it in a
month?
Jacob
Post by RayBulk aging is not done so much for avoiding exploding bottles as to improve
the mead. However you really pushed the envelope, even assuming it was
perfectly dry. You may get away with it sometimes, maybe frequently, but
you are going to get caught eventually and then someone could get hurt.
The minimum, imho, is the 2.5 weeks of secondary you mention, rack off the
sediment, then 2 more weeks or until it is crystal clear. This will get
most all the yeast out of the bottled wine. At that point you can safely
bottle, though I would not recommend it, if it is absolutely dry.
My suggestion would be that if you are going to bottle that quickly you
should use sulfite and sorbate to protect against renewed fermentation even
if it seems dry. After all dry is relative. One wine can be dry at SG of
.996 and another can slowly go down to .898.
But then -- live dangerously if you want. It's your hands and wall paper!
Ray
Post by Jacob JohnstonI'm curious about this. It seems to vary according to which source I'm
reading. I made a braggot that I kept in primary for 1 week and in
secondary
Post by Jacob Johnstonfor 2.5 weeks and it turned out fine (no exploding bottles after 6
months
Post by Rayin
Post by Jacob Johnstonthe bottle), but it seems that what I did is far from customary for most
meads. What's the typically length of time spent before bottling for most
meads and what are the factors I should know about in deciding how long a
mead should age before bottling?
Jacob